Monday, May 31, 2010

The hunt is over!!

If you remember my previous post I've been struggling with the Australian aesthetic when it comes to making a house a home. To recap, the typical (i.e. easy to find) style here is ultra-modern modular type furniture and that's just not my style! To add insult to injury, everything is very very expensive compared to what I'd be prepared to pay for something similar in Texas and it made finding the perfect couch a very painful undertaking indeed.

So, it is with more than extreme excitement when I inform you that THE HUNT IS OVER!!

We were at the markets today and I was lamenting, yet again, how we don't have a couch yet after hearing of the steal someone got at Lifeline (thrift store) on a really nice lounge set. Then they told me that the family who owned a popular local corner store has sold up for a cool $1.5 mil. so they're selling everything they can at a garage sale this weekend and moving to Townsville. They mentioned that there was a huge chocolate brown (EEEK! the color I want!) lounge for $800. We promptly abandoned the markets and drove straight to the garage sale hoping against hope it was still there.

When we pulled up, we had every intention of trying to talk them down to $500; after all, they'd been at it since Friday arve and still hadn't sold the thing and we'd hoped we could score a deal. We also hoped there wasn't something horribly wrong with it! When I sat down on it, I was blown away by how soft and perfectly squishy it was. I was also blown away that it wasn't micro-suede after all but genuine suede leather. And, even though it's more modern that what I would pay full-price for, I feel like it's the happy medium between the modular and La-Z-Boy style extremes I'd seen in all the stores and people's homes. It's a silky soft over-stuffed masterpeice made all the better by the fact that it's mine. :) On top of THAT, two overstuffed arm-chairs were included in the price! (As a reference, you'd pay at least $4000 for a similar set in stores, no exaggeration.) We were sold right on the spot and I giggled and clapped all the way home!

We came into some difficulties after they delivered it to our house and realized perhaps why it hadn't sold yet....others who posessed greater forsight than with which we were blessed had most probably measured the couch ahead of time and learned how truly enormous it is and that it simply would not fit through their doorway no matter how amazing it is. We sure learned that the hard way! We ended up having to lift it through the window.

Now, pushing it through the window probably sounds pretty simple to those of you who live in your average home where the base of the windows are all but 6 inches from the ground...however, we live in what's known around these parts as a "low set" which means our floor is a good 4-4.5 feet off the ground. On top of that, the base of all our windows are fitted with louvers meaning that the base of the actual window itself is a good 7-7.5 ft from the ground. We (and by we I mean Chris) had to lift this couch 7.5 ft off the ground, over his head and through the window. First he took the window completely out of the pane which I thought was pretty cool and then lifted the whole fricken couch over his head (it's huge y'all, it's at least 200 lbs) while I guided it into the house from upstairs. The couch was 34 inches wide and the window was 34.5" so it was a pretty tight squeeze to boot.... talk about team building!

Here is Petra checking out one of the chairs for the first time. :) (btw, I glued her first set of claw covers on in honor of her trying to scratch the couch and learned she is WAY patient with them which is super exciting for us!)

The chairs themselves are humongous. Each one is about equal to half of the couch, which is also humongous, and our house is pretty small as far as houses go....so we have a space issue. The solution is to move the tv and entertainment center (you won't understand the details of where unless you've been in our house so I'll skip 'em for you ;) ) but that raises the issue of the satellite cable being too short to reach where I want to move the tv...so we gotta find a longer cable. So, for the moment, our living room is very crowded and off-balance until we get that cable....but I still love it. Our house feels SO much more homey now, for the first time.

I've noticed a few signs of wear on the couch that I didn't notice before, like a few spots where the suede has gone shiny I guess due to friction or oils from people's hands. This is only on the seams of the arm-rests of the chairs though, the rest of it is perfect! I googled it and it looks like you can bring the nap back up on suede with a special brush....so I'll need to get one of those. I can't BELIEVE we have a leather couch. SQUUUEEEEEE!!!!!

In closing, this is what our $800 could have bought us at the cheapest shop in town:

Not bad, but not leather, a fraction of the size and no way could it be this soooooft! I want to live in my couch. :)

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About Me

I recently moved from Big City Texas to Small Town Queensland to marry the man of my dreams. To be honest, I spend most of my days doing absolutely nothing...this blog catalogs the nothingness. About Me: I'd rather have a night filled with good food, good wine and good company than one in a smoky bar with over-priced drinks and sore feet any day. I like to cook but I hate to clean. I love to travel but hate to fly. I love cats but hate litter boxes. I really love all things girly; fashion, makeup, hair, you name it. I wouldn't like to see how much I spend on fashion mags every year... I am also passionate about starting a ministry for youth and children someday...not sure of the deets yet, though time will tell. There's too much about me to fit in this little box. That's what the blog is for.